App launched to help doctors assess risk of lung cancer in people with lung nodules

A new smartphone app has been launched to help guide doctors on the next steps for patients who have small masses of tissue in their lungs – known as pulmonary nodules.

These nodules are common and most are harmless – but some can be cancerous and need treatment. They appear as round, white shadows on a chest X-ray or CT scan. Cancer Research UK – in partnership with the British Thoracic Society – used their in-house digital experts to develop a free iOS (iPhone, iPad etc.) app for doctors, nurses and technicians examining people with pulmonary nodules.

The app gives medics quick and easy access to guidelines developed by the British Thoracic Society, along with risk and growth calculators, turning the mobile phone into a powerful way to accurately manage nodules. At the moment, respiratory clinicians and radiologists use CT scans and information from patient records to help decide how best to manage patients who have pulmonary nodules.

The app will provide additional information to help clinicians quickly and accurately identify who is at risk and needs further investigations while avoiding unnecessary testing and worry for patients with nodules which are likely to be benign.

Guidelines and calculators in the app help clinicians decide what the next best steps are for their patients – whether to discharge them, bring them back for monitoring in the future or to proceed with more tests to confirm a lung cancer diagnosis and provide appropriate treatment.

This new easy-to-use app brings together the guidelines and calculators together into one place, allowing clinical staff to decide the next steps quickly.

To ensure the app is straight forward, reliable and provides the right advice, Cancer Research UK worked with doctors, radiologists and nurses across the country throughout the development process. More than 40 clinicians provided advice and feedback on the design of the app and confirmed there is huge demand for quick and simple solutions to support their decision-making.

Dr Jodie Moffat, Cancer Research UK’s head of early diagnosis, said: “Mobile phones have become essential tools in most people’s everyday lives. Moving beyond selfies, social media and playlists, this app is designed to support clinicians in their decision-making so we can help ensure the right people are getting the right tests at the right time. Using smartphones to put this knowledge into clinicians’ hands will enable them make the best possible choices more quickly and efficiently, helping to speed up the time it takes to diagnose lung cancer. Ensuring that patients who need further tests get these quickly is another step towards diagnosing lung cancer as swiftly as possible.”

Professor David Baldwin, Consultant Respiratory Physician at Nottingham University Hospitals and member of the British Thoracic Society, said: “The new app is a very useful tool for healthcare professionals to help guide their assessment, diagnosis and treatment of pulmonary nodules ensuring that management is evidence based. It builds on the existing and very popular ‘BTS Pulmonary Nodule Risk Prediction Calculator’ and we’re delighted to have partnered with Cancer Research UK to develop the app so that it will make the guideline so much more accessible via the App Store. It means that many more practitioners will be able to access the essential elements of the guideline on the go, and in different settings within the hospital.”